


A Moment

by BlueAlmond



Series: Defenders of the Insurgency [3]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Angst, Apocalypse, Comfort, Dystopia, Friendship, I Tried, Other, Prequel, Some Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-05 23:16:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18838780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueAlmond/pseuds/BlueAlmond
Summary: A moment is all it takes for everything you know to go to hell. Just a moment, for the only world you’ve known to turn upside down.Or: A retelling of the day the vampires rose.





	A Moment

**Author's Note:**

> This is the ultimate prequel, it is not necessary to read anything else on this series to understand it.
> 
> Okay. This took me forever to publish because I basically restructured the entire series and I was torn because that meant deleting a lot of scenes (an entire story, two character acts, a scene from this one…) I really liked and I’m bad at doing that. But! I did it! And I really like where this is going so, it was worth it. Enjoy!

June 10, 2016 is a day remembered quite similarly for everyone; and yet, people still feel eager to tell their own experiences when they meet someone new.

Nowadays, years from then, it is only remembered as the ‘Insurgency Day’, and the year stopped being important. The world changed drastically and so did the calendar, though Hamilton once told George Washington that it had been a printing house’s strategy to make some extra money on the first few days after the event, selling pocket sized calendars with the year 1 AI instead of the trite 2016 and for some reason it stuck. George had found the story entertaining, even if he couldn’t identify the source, but never sprayed it. Still he heard it somewhere else soon enough anyway. That sort of thing tended to get around, they always did, but if there was something George had to acknowledge was that the vampires had been really well prepared when it came to communications.

The message that they were taking over was transmitted all around the world at ten in the morning UTC/GMT -4 hours, and at least in New York there had been chaos. George couldn’t tell why they had picked that time. The option he considered most likely was that at that hour people in Japan would still find out, but the subway wouldn’t collapse the way it would have earlier—it still did, and it had been over eleven in the evening.

Most people panicked, wherever they were.

George had been at the hospital, like any other day, going through some documents he needed for the meeting he had scheduled for that afternoon with the board to get some new stretchers. He thanked how everybody used WhatsApp those days because Martha’s call got in with no trouble. He had been so absorbed on his work, that he hadn’t even noticed his secretary running away, much less the chaos at the other side of the building. Even his wife, the woman he considered calm personified, was a little hysteric with the news.

George was simply shocked out of his mind. When she was done talking, he _laughed_.

“ _George, I’m serious,_ ” said Martha, urgently.

“I know dear, I know, but… are you sure this isn’t some elaborate joke?”

“ _Turn on the news dear, get on the internet, or check anywhere. Hell, get out of your office and see how everybody is panicking. You’re probably going to have a lot of work today._ ”

He sighed and shook his head, his laughter barely under control. “What, you’re not going to ask me to go home to you, dear?”

“ _Don’t be ridiculous George, I’m not home._ ”

“I would think that in the middle of an apocalypse, the cigarette business would have some integrity and let you all go.”

“ _Are you kidding? The streets aren’t safe. We’re better in here._ ”

That sobered him. He leaned forward on his desk and gulped. “Are you sure? Martha, when people panic like this they do things they wouldn’t do otherwise. Perhaps you should go home, do you have pepper spray with you? Maybe…”

“ _George, I’m locked inside my office and I’m going to stay here. I told everyone in my charge that they could leave if they wanted but I recommended them to wait, and so far, people in my section tried to keep working. Everyone’s trembling and the bathroom sounded like a funeral, but we’re fine. I’m fine. Just, I want to hear that you’ll be careful._ ”

“I will, love, don’t worry about me.”

“ _Vampires are suddenly real, George, and you’re in a hospital. You can’t ask me not to worry._ ”

He figured she was right, and they ended that conversation shortly. He did as she suggested and paled with what he found online; he needed a minute to compose himself before daring to go see the rest of the hospital. He was glad to find that everyone was still working, if anything a little frantic but focused on their tasks, especially in the E.R., which looked like a warzone. It was easy to tell which patients had been there before the news and which were just arriving, and in that latter group there was an even more appalling one: there were people with actual bites on them, bleeding out but with hardly a trace of blood on their clothes. Still, he didn’t panic. He just realized that they, as the human race, needed to do something to respond to these aggressive predators.

There were some lucky people, some who had known about the existence of vampires before they took over the world and weren’t as shocked or terrified or desperate to find protection. A certain young man, Gilbert de Lafayette, still got caught in the middle of the city, just outside the Canal Street Subway Station, but he knew an old friend of his family would send someone for him. He’d grown knowing about vampires in the way kids know about lawyers. Like, the aunt that comes to dinner from time to time is one, and they’re usually mentioned in movies but they’re always different and quite ridiculous in there, when in reality they’re just like any other adult. He didn’t question how she always came at night until ‘Twilight’ was a thing when he was thirteen, and then he just _had_ to ask what they meant when they said she was a vampire.

He didn’t know what he was expecting, but it wasn’t what he heard.

Not ten years later, he had thought he was prepared for it all to explode in the way it did, but he wasn’t. His aunt and cousin were nice people, wore nice clothes and smiles and usually drank from tainted bottles, but nothing else. He never saw them hurting anyone, not even an animal, so when he saw a cop trying to contain a guy completely covered—if you looked hard enough, and Lafayette did, you could see some steam around him—and get bitten by him, screaming and kicking without an effect on the monster, because that guy doing that was a monster, he almost threw up, because there were real monsters on the street. It didn’t matter if he was sending a message by that; he was ultimately murdering a person in front of a crowd, completely unaffected by said person’s agony. All he could do to take his eyes away from the scene was to observe the people around it. Some were crying, some were in shock, and there was one guy that must have been around his age that just looked angry. The kid looked like he was about to walk right in the middle of it all, so Lafayette did what he later realized wasn’t very smart: he grabbed his arm and yanked him away from the scene. The kid yelled, obviously, and tried to kick him.

“Dude, calm down, I’m not one of them,” he said reasonably, though he wasn’t expecting the guy to calm down.

He at least stopped yelling, but glaring he said: “Why should I believe you?”

“That guy over there had no trouble biting the cop in the middle of the street. Why would I take you somewhere else?”

“What do I know?”

Lafayette sighed. “I’m freaking out too, and I don’t want to be alone. You look like you’re not about to have a panic attack nor a psychotic break nor start crying like most people so, I’m taking you with me.”

“But _where_ are you taking me?”

“Somewhere safe.”

“How do you know what safe is, in the middle of this chaos?”

“See? I knew you were smart,” he sniggered and looked around, searching for the car that he knew was waiting for him. Relief washed through him when he saw it, and the guy he was still holding frowned slightly. “Just come with me, if you want to live. My name’s Gilbert de Lafayette, by the way.”

“Alexander Hamilton,” the guy’s response was automatic. “If you know a safe place, shouldn’t we try to take others with us?”

“Hysteric people will draw attention to us and now’s not the time for that. Let’s wait. If you see anybody calm enough, even if they’re numb, tell me, but that’s our ride,” he nodded towards a car on the sidewalk.

“I got to tell you man, you’ll never convince anyone you’re taking them to safety like this. I’m almost positive you’re in fact kidnapping me. For all I know, you’re taking me as the appetizer for a private party.”

“Yes, that’s also the reason why I can’t just tell people to follow me,” he admitted with a grimace. “I don’t know why I knew you wouldn’t freak out.”

“Oh no, I’m freaking out. I just look calm because I’m kind of used to it.”

“That’s… good, given the circumstances, I guess?” They entered the car and Lafayette nodded to the driver as a greeting but didn’t say anything and Alexander didn’t either. “Okay,” he took a deep breath, glanced out the window and decided to look only at the guy on his other side, “so I should probably warn you, uh… we’re actually going to a vampire’s place.”

Lafayette regretted his decision. If he thought the guy had looked angry before, now he was considering that had been his neutral face. He had to force himself to not look away as Alexander snapped: “What?”

“But she’s cool! She’s not going to feed on us! Tell him, Jacques.”

The driver hurried to clarify, cheerfully: “She’s not going to kill any of us.”

“Oh, right, she kind of feeds on Jacques, but that’s not the point!” he ran a hand through his hair. In the morning it had been tied tightly in a ponytail but now it was messy. He untied it to remake it. “She’s like, my aunt, and her daughter. I’ve always known them, and they kind of gave me the heads up, you know?”

“If you knew this would happen what were you doing outside?”

“I had things to do,” he shrugged, “work. But she sent her driver to be ready to bring me to her place when things got out of control.”

Alexander didn’t look convinced, but he didn’t look furious either. Lafayette could work with that. His aunt and cousin were good people, and he trusted they would be able to make the guy feel safe, at least for a little while. The truth was, even though they were family to him, he hadn’t been to their house that often, and given the current circumstances, he didn’t want to be alone there either.

“That guy over there seems shocked out of his mind,” commented Alexander, pointing out the window. “If he doesn’t freak out, we should take him with us.”

That sounded fine by him. He told Jacques to stop, and before he could ask the guy if he wanted to go together, Alexander jumped out. He worried for a minute it had all been a scheme to get out of there, but he genuinely went to the trembling guy supporting himself against a wall.

“Hey, you okay? You’re human, right? God, this is so fucked up.”

The shaking guy stared at him for a moment, fazed, but eventually nodded. “You?”

“Yeah,” Alexander chuckled and scratched the back of his head. Then, he extended a hand. “I’m Alexander Hamilton.”

The guy shook his hand firmly. “John Laurens.”

He pointed at the car behind them with his thumb. “A guy invited me to his house while this whole mess passes. Apparently, he knew it was going to happen or something like that. It’s weird, but I trust him for a reason. You want to come?”

“Why not? That sounds better than staying in the middle of the street.” Anything sounded better than staying in the middle of the street, if they didn’t think hard enough. Or maybe none of them were fans of horror movies, and terrible scenarios didn’t come so easily to their minds, but there was something about Lafayette that made it easy to trust him. It wasn’t something like charisma, like a conman, no. The guy wasn’t exactly charming. And yet he was energetic and open in a way that made it hard to believe he could be hiding anything. So both, Alexander and John, sat back on the car and after a minute decidedly avoided looking out the windows. There was nothing but chaos on the streets, and stopping was no longer an option, not for a car filled with humans.

The road to wherever they were going was long, about two and half hours racing through mostly empty streets and a deserted highway, and after a while, conversation bloomed easily between the three men in the backseat, with the occasional input from the driver—the one human who’d been working for vampires his entire life—which was always a little odd.

They talked about who they were until that morning, convinced by then that it would hardly matter from then on. It was quite upsetting for both, Alexander and John, who had invested a lot of themselves in politics, to see it all become fruitless. Lafayette in turn was most upset about, to the other’s shock, the world cup being interrupted.

When he found disbelieving faces, he rolled his eyes and muttered something in French. Then he added: “I was warned something like this would happen one day. I knew human politics would be interrupted one day. And obviously, what’s worst right now is how vulnerable we all are, trapped in a poor effort to protect ourselves, but they could’ve at least waited until after the world cup, right?”

Alexander burst out laughing first, and John shortly joined him. They were all stressed, scared, sad, and worried sick about their loved ones, but a little laughter made, for just a second, the tension leave them. It didn’t last nearly enough, and by the time they made it into a huge house surrounded by large trees, they had been quiet for a while. Alexander and John exchanged a nervous glance, and exited the car after taking deep breaths, behind Lafayette.

“Hey Ad, I’m back and I brought a couple of strangers!” announced he.

“Hello.” A beautiful woman that must have been about their age came down the stairs with a troubled expression. “Are you alright? I was watching the news. It seems like it’s chaos out there.”

Lafayette nodded. “It is. Uh, guys, this is my cousin, Adrienne, and yes, she’s a vampire. But I’ve known her all my life! She’s good. She’s not going to eat anybody.”

She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. “No. I won’t. May I know who you brought into my house?”

“I’m Alexander Hamilton.” He took a step closer to her and extended a hand. “And I’m pretty sure your cousin saved me. It was… maddening, out in the street.”

She shook his hand with a loose grip. Her hand was soft and small. “I can only imagine. Feel free to stay here for as long as you need.”

The other human cleared his throat. “I’m John Laurens. Thank you for letting us stay.”

“Don’t worry about it. Are you hungry? I believe there’s cake in the fridge. If you want anything, Jacques can drive you. No one should mess with the car. It’s special. Vampires can recognize it belongs to one of us.”

“That’s cool,” said Alexander grinning brightly but still a little nervous. “So you guys are like, an organized community?”

Adrienne hummed as she led them into a wide living room and took a seat on one couch. “I believe so, yes. We’ve always been… communicated. We live for many years, and we have families. I still talk very often with my great-great-great grandmother, and she has friends she made centuries ago that have their own children and I know them… now, how organized we are? I don’t know.”

“I think many were. They just didn’t contact us,” said another woman who just then entered the room and sat down next to Adrienne. “And we knew it was coming. They told us. They told us the time. But somebody else decided it, and I don’t think they decided it alone.”

“Do you know who might have been involved in it?” asked Lafayette.

The woman sighed and shrugged one shoulder. “No. I don’t. I believe Adams was definitely involved. Perhaps an Ogden or a Lee…” she grabbed the glass Adrienne had slid her way and took a small sip of it. “Honestly, I don’t know, and I don’t care.”

“Hopefully they’re going to keep the world from going to hell,” said Lafayette. “They better have planned some sort of control, otherwise you’re all going to run out of food real soon.”

“I don’t think they would’ve done this without a plan for that,” replied Adrienne. “We’re not stupid. Besides I once saw a movie where that happened.”

“I think I saw that movie too,” commented Laurens with a grin, “it was pretty awesome. With Ethan Hawke, right?”

Adrienne shrugged. “I don’t really know actors’ names. There are so many, and they all look alike… besides, I don’t get it. Characters are to be portrayed by anyone.”

“My cousin is old-fashioned and prefers the theatre,” explained Lafayette, looking bored. “She doesn’t understand that some characters…” he shook his head, “some actors transcend their characters, and they simply cannot be played by anyone else.”

“I’m not against remakes, but I understand those that follow their careers, when an actor is good.”

“Or good-looking.”

“Yeah, that too,” admitted Hamilton with a grin. “But I get it. There’s nothing like real life theatre. It’s a whole different experience, but not as accessible as movies…” he stopped talking, face shifting into worry once again as he turned to face the other human, who was growing more and more impatient, fidgeting with his phone. “You okay?”

“I’m trying to call home but no one’s attending the phone.” He shook his head. “I was going home for summer break, that was the plan but I… I don’t know why I stayed here a little longer.”

Lafayette hummed. “You’re in college, right.”

Laurens nodded. He had mentioned it in the car on the way there. “Hudson.”

“Where are you from?” asked Alexander.

“South Carolina… this is freaking me out. They’re probably just busy, right? Or maybe they weren’t home when this all started, and they haven’t gone back yet, like me, right?”

“Yeah, sure, that’s got to be it man, don’t worry.”

John bit his bottom lip. “But why aren’t they picking up the phone?”

Another human entered the room with a big smile which vanished as soon as she noticed the atmosphere, and a tray full of plates with cake. “Hello! I brought cake!”

“Thank you dear,” said Adrienne, “you can leave it on the table.”

The maid nodded and quickly left.

“Gilbert, why don’t you take them upstairs? You know which rooms are available for guests, find one near yours.”

Lafayette nodded. “Good idea, auntie.”

“Wait, no,” said Alexander. “Thank you, but I’m going to go soon. I can’t stay the night.”

Adrienne frowned. “Where will you go?”

Alexander shrugged. “I need to go home.”

“But, but you _can’t_. There’s a mess out there, and—”

“Ad,” interrupted her Lafayette, placing a placating hand on her shoulder and squeezing fondly, “we’ll have to go out eventually.” He turned to Alexander with a sheepish smile, “though I got to admit it feels a little early to do so. Are you sure you don’t want to wait for a few days? At least spend the night.”

“I feel like I’ve been here all day already. It’ll take me a while to make it back.”

“Somehow I doubt you’ll have a class next week. Take it as a vacation. We have a pool.”

“That sounds tempting,” admitted Alexander. “But I have to go.”

“Why? Do you have a pet or something?”

“No, but…”

“Then there’s no hurry. Come on man, don’t be unnecessarily reckless. I promise Jacques will take you wherever you need to be when the sun is in the sky.”

“Yes. The night can be very dangerous, Alexander,” added Adrienne. “Even before this, it was. Now…”

Before Alexander could say anything else, John nodded decidedly and said: “We’ll stay. It would be foolish to go now, it’s lunchtime. Do you have any food besides cake? I’m starving.”

Adrienne giggled, but answered affirmatively. She explained to them that born-vampires had to eat certain things while growing up, and adults still enjoyed many human things, like chocolate and meat. Ravioli were a personal favorite of hers, and the human staff had already started preparing some.

It would’ve been easy, just staying there, for an undefined period of time. The house was huge, the staff, both human and vampire, was nice, and the hosts were kind and considerate. They seemed to be just as shocked, lost, and restless as they were, with the added comfort and security that came with knowing they weren’t genuinely in danger. It would’ve been so easy, to stick around and be safe as well. But not even Lafayette looked like he wanted to do that.

As early as breakfast the next day, all three humans were ready to go.

“Gil? Where are you going?” asked his cousin.

He sighed and shrugged one shoulder, giving her a sheepish smile. “Honestly? I have no idea, Ad. But I have to get out there and just, asses the situation, you know?”

“Nobody knows what the situation is. It’s not safe yet.”

“So what? We just stay here until someone decided to do something?” He shook his head and placed his hands on his hips. “Forget it. I need to be out there.”

“I’m with you, dude,” said Laurens, grinning and offering him a hand to clap. “I’m sure there’s got to be groups of people organizing somewhere.”

“Definitely,” added Hamilton, “because governments everywhere are just out of the picture.” He showed them something on his phone. “Look what little can be found on Twitter. They shut down the platform at some point early yesterday, but I got to save some screenshots.”

“Is anything working?”

“Everything’s closured. Not even Google is working.”

“The TV is on,” commented Adrienne’s mother, leaning against a wall and staring at them with just a gleam of humor on her eyes. “And there’s a message for humans.”

“Just like yesterday.”

She nodded. “Just like yesterday, except… no.”

“What’s that?”

“The UN buildings in New York City, Geneva, Nairobi, and Vienna. What did we miss, sweetie?”

A vampire maid cleared her throat and said: “There’s a different council in each of those buildings, and they will be the top authorities in the world from now on. All human officials are now obsolete. And…”

“Wait, wait, they’re talking.”

A female vampire appeared on the screen, presenting a man in a weird uniform. It looked like a standard police officer, but the colors were like anywhere else on the world, not the common blue or green. Their suits were black and red, and their badges were a dark grey. They looked right out of a horror videogame. She informed all spectators that those were the new police officers, and they ought to be obeyed. That shortly, a new constitution with new laws and instructions would be published. That there would be a curfew for all humans at five o’clock, everywhere, and that they couldn’t reassure their safety whenever the sun wasn’t on the sky. But, that they could be sure no one would hurt them during the day.

The smile on the vampire’s face made that last part a little hard to believe.

“Well, there you have it. You can’t go out and be back in time for the curfew.”

“Then I guess I’ll just stay in the city.”

“You guys can stay with me if you want,” said Hamilton, putting on his jacket. “And I guess we better get going.”

Both Laurens and Lafayette nodded and got ready to move. In minutes, they were outside with Jacques, who looked nervous.

“You don’t have to take us all the way to the city if you don’t want to,” said Lafayette, sympathetic, clasping his shoulder. “We get it. Just, take us as close as you can.”

Jacques licked his lips nervously and opened the driver’s door. “Actually… we have more than one car. And our cars, they have a seal. It means it belongs to a vampire, the driver can be human, and we may even get permission to stay out of curfew. But…” he locked eyes with each of the three young men, a calculative expression on his face, “why don’t you take one, alone? You wouldn’t need to bring it back unless there’s trouble.”

“That’s actually a pretty good idea,” said Laurens. “Thanks, man.”

“Hey, the cars aren’t mine,” he giggled. “But I’m sure your aunt won’t mind, Mr. Gilbert.”

Lafayette chuckled and took the keys out of his hand. By noon, they were on their way to New York City.

֍

A day after that impossible message most crowded cities looked half empty. But if one looked very closely, one could see that their inhabitants hadn’t left; they were simply hiding inside their apartments. There were no restaurants or shops open, not even retail stores, and that was perhaps one of the most shocking sights. Subway entrances weren’t closured, but there were traces of handmade barricades on the surface, which wasn’t weird, considering how intimidating was the prospect of a large area that was never touched by the sun. Still, New York City looked deserted, free of both humans and vampires.

“Where do you guys want to go first?” asked Lafayette, who was driving.

Laurens, in the backseat, shrugged while staring out the window like in a trance. “I don’t know. I was ready to leave for South Carolina, but since that’s not happening… I’ll just follow you.”

Lafayette hummed, unsure of what speed he should maintain. Should he go slow, so they could accurately inspect the outside? Or should he go fast, as the instincts inside his frightened heart suggested? He knew technically they were safe in that car, but he felt like he was in the middle of an apocalyptic movie and was only waiting for the horde of zombies to appear around every corner.

Just then, when Hamilton gasped, both Lafayette and Laurens were crippled with anxiety.

“Wait, what’s that?” asked Hamilton pointing somewhere out the window. “Slow down. Or better yet, stop.”

Lafayette swallowed hard, but gently stepped on the breaks. “What did you see?”

“Go back.”

“Jesus, Hamilton, just tell me what you saw.”

“I’m not sure…”

Lafayette stopped asking, because as they slowly drove in reverse, he noticed a silhouette on the floor and correctly assumed Hamilton had been concerned about that. Could it be a human that needed help? Hamilton was in medical school. That could come in handy. He heard as Laurens unfastened his seatbelt and was about to open the door, but then didn’t.

“Go,” he said instead.

“What?”

“Drive away. Now. Hurry.”

“Wait, Laurens, what are you…?”

Hamilton gasped once again and nodded hurriedly. “He’s right. I’ll explain later, but go, Laf. Quickly!”

He didn’t need to be told twice, and accelerated away from there, feeling cold sweat run down his spine. “What the fuck was that?”

“A person and a monster feeding of that person. There was nothing we could’ve done,” mumbled Laurens.

“Shit.” He passed a hand over his head and wondered if they’d been wrong in coming. “Safe during the day, my ass. They could’ve given a number for the police. We should be able to denounce that motherfucker.”

“Where’s your apartment, Alex?”

Hamilton eyed the console of the car and moaned. “Not close enough. We’re going to need more gas.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I wish I was. You think I want to get off the car?”

“Let me get some more distance from the guy whose dinner we interrupted first, okay?” He sighed. “How wasn’t he burning anyway? The sun is up! Was he covered under something?”

“Completely covered, thanks to the structure of the building and with a few sheets. That’s why I didn’t see him at first. Just saw a person with its head under some covers. Then, I noticed the arms that were holding them, and how they kicked… shit, they were struggling, Laf, but what could we have done?”

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

“Do you think we’re far enough? There’s a gas station.”

Lafayette took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay. Okay…”

Hamilton unfastened his seatbelt and crossed himself. “Don’t move. That way we can go fast if we have to. I’ll go.”

“Good idea,” said Laurens. “Be careful. And hurry.”

He didn’t need to tell him that. He practically did everything running, not even daring to look over his shoulder as to not waste time. It didn’t matter. What Alexander didn’t yet know was that vampires were incredibly silent creatures, designed for the shadows, for the subtlety. Even under the sun, when they were at their weakest, they were stronger, faster than humans.

But still, under the sun, not nearly at the top of their game, there was a chance for humans to fight back and defend themselves, if they kept their head clear. But how could anyone do that, when a monster attacked them with the intention of drinking their blood? How could anyone take a moment to take in what was going on, to take advantage of their surroundings? Even to ask for help sounded like too much, as instinctual as it could be. When something tried to take him down, tackling him to the ground, Alexander had no idea what to do. He kicked and tried to hold the creature by the shoulders, tried to push him away, but when he fell he’d hit his head and he was disoriented and weak. He yelled, but he wasn’t genuinely expecting the guys in the car to hear him, or help him even so. He was panicking, but he never stopped fighting. He was alive still, and he wasn’t bleeding, and whatever was on top of him was heavily covered. One thought stroke him like lightning, the idea to uncover him, to let the sun touch the skin Alexander couldn’t see. But his arms were busy keeping him away from him, and his mind wasn’t cooperating enough in its franticness to find a way to do it with his feet. He tried to push away the jacket by his shoulders, a voice in the back of his head telling him it was useless, but he didn’t stop. He didn’t stop until he heard a loud bang and the creature hissing away in pain, finally abandoning him.

A man kneeled by his side and asked: “Did he bite you?”

Alexander’s head was still roaring, from the previous hit, but he managed to mumble: “No. No I, I kept him away.”

“Smart boy.” He offered him a hand. “Do you think you can stand?”

He took a deep breath, eyed the hand, saw all that exposed skin that wasn’t affected by the sun, and nodded. That made him a little dizzy, so he waited a moment before actually standing up. Then, he noticed Lafayette and Laurens were staring at him and panting.

“I had no idea what to do, and using the claxon didn’t seem like a good idea,” explained Lafayette. “But Laurens here,” he pointed at him with his thumb, “thought he saw someone near the stairs to the subway. Someone without a hat nor anything.”

“He ran there, and he found us,” explained the man that was still holding Alexander’s arm, making sure he was stable on his feet. “That was very brave.”

“I think Laf was a little braver, touching that thing.”

Alexander stared at Lafayette wide-eyed. He hadn’t even noticed Lafayette had been around.

“I tried to uncover his head, but he was wearing some kind of turban and it was impossible!” He sighed and shook his head. “I’m sorry, man.”

“Hey, most people would’ve drove off, what are you talking about? Thank you, guys.”

“He’s right,” said the strange man. He then locked eyes with two other men, who had been chasing off the monster, and nodded. “Let’s go. Here it is not safe.”

They didn’t argue, even though when they reached the stairs to a metro station they looked at each other with caution. The idea of going down there was less than appealing, but the men that had saved them went without hesitation, and so, they followed.

They followed them through one railroad until they made it into another station altogether, which seemed to have been adapted into some sort of fort. There were at least two dozen of people inside, with all sorts of equipment; from medical implements to guns and computers. It was impressive, and apparently completely isolated, with the exception of two entrances through the railways, heavily guarded.

“Where are we?” asked Alexander then.

“I wish I could say somewhere safe, but I have no idea what safe is anymore.”

“What is this place?”

“Well… I believe we can say this is a resistance cell.” He extended a hand which Alexander shook immediately. “My name is George, George Washington. I’m a doctor. Or I used to be. I don’t know. Everything’s a mess right now.”

Alexander nodded, his eyes never leaving the man’s face. “And what exactly are you doing here?”

“For now? We’re waiting, and planning. We still don’t know what those monsters want to do, or what they _can_ do. We need to be careful. But everyone’s main concern here is to assure humanity’s survival in the best conditions. Dignity. Hopefully, to bring some courage for those that are currently hiding.” He clasped Alexander’s shoulder and squeezed. “You’re welcome to join us.”

“Thank you, sir. I’d love to.”

“Me too,” added Laurens, who’d been quiet until then.

Washington nodded with a small smile. “Look around where you might be needed. I’ll be on that corner.” He pointed with his thumb at one side where a group of people were talking around a few planes of the city and subway.

Alexander almost followed him, but he wanted to inspect the entire place first. He turned to tell Laurens that, but worried a little when he found him wide-eyed, frozen in his spot. “Laurens are you okay?”

“Huh? Yeah, I’m fine.”

He wasn’t exactly fine; he was, in fact, ecstatic. He was living a childhood dream, there, in a clandestine reunion full of people that wanted to fight for justice. He wasn’t happy there were monsters openly walking the earth, of course, but he was glad their old wicked system was gone and buried, and enough people were willing to fight for a better world.

Honestly in the first few hours the resistance didn’t have a single good idea. It was full of people with strong wills, determination and resilience, but they didn’t have a clue on how to get the control of the world back from the vampires; didn’t even know what kind of system the monsters were planning of implanting. All around the world through encrypted chat sites they communicated, but nobody really knew _what_ to do. It wasn’t weird that their first operations on the following days were erratic and useless, but at least they made some noise. Perhaps it was the wrong kind of noise, because they didn’t get enough adepts, but they were doing something and that was already better than hiding like ninety nine percent of the world’s population.

If only they didn’t die so easily and fast, perhaps they would’ve gotten more people.

It would take years and they knew it. It would take planning, carefully and radically, to make any progress for their cause. It would take endurance, for the vampires were already making it sound and look like the resistance had lost and was quickly disappearing—which couldn’t be further from the truth. They were there, not winning, but not losing, and they weren’t going anywhere.

It would take all that, but that was okay, because they were human, and they were alive, and for as long as that remained a fact, they would keep fighting.


End file.
